OSOYOOS TIMES-November 18, 2009
The provincial government has stated that the main reason it passed legislation which brought an end to a seven-month-old paramedics strike was due to pressures on the health care system brought about by H1N1.
“With the H1N1 pandemic impacting the acute care system and winter and the holiday season fast approaching, the public needs certainty that they’ll have the care they need in an emergency,” Health Services Minister Kevin Falcon said earlier this month when the legislation was introduced.
At the same time, Interior Health has been forced to suspend some public health services including prenatal classes, adult immunizations, speech-language pathology services and pregnancy testing so more of the health authority’s staff members can focus on H1N1 vaccinations.
Such measures have meant local residents don’t have access to a number of services they rely on and provincial paramedics have been forced to cease a legal strike.
Ultimately, many are being asked to sacrifice in order to deal with the current H1N1 situation.
But are these sacrifices necessary?
One has to wonder if actions by the government earlier this year have led to the necessity for such sacrifices.
This summer, the province announced a $360 million budget shortfall for health care services in British Columbia.
The shortfall meant Interior Health had to find as much as $30 million in savings by continuing hiring freezes, issuing layoffs and cutting back on non-essential overtime.
The question arises as to whether these measures have contributed to the need to now pull staff away from health care services, which are of high value to many people in this area, to deal with H1N1.
Since H1N1 first reared its head in the spring, couldn’t the government have done a better job of predicting what this province’s health care needs would be during the current flu season?
It seems unfair that people who rely on some of the health care services currently suspended have to go without and that paramedics have to temporarily abandon their quest for better pay and working conditions just months after the province informed health authorities they would have to make huge sacrifices to survive the budget shortfall.
What will we be asked to give up next?
A little foresight, and perhaps some better planning on the part of the provincial government may have meant such sacrifices were not necessary in the first place.
